Roman concrete, how Rome was built … and still stands

dada_dave

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People have been studying Roman concrete and why it was so durable in order to improve modern “Portland” cement. One of the end goals is to make less of it since the process of concrete making contributes to global warming (estimated at 8% of greenhouse gas).

Whereas Portland concrete is designed to be as chemically inert as possible to stave off cracks and bubbles that would harm the integrity, Roman concrete is chemically active but in such a way that heals cracks and improves durability. Further Roman concrete seems to have had multiple mechanisms to achieve this from the kind of limestone used to use of volcanic rocks and ash.



Each of these news articles contain links to published papers.

It’s a good reminder that our ancestors the world over (and no doubt current but pre-technological societies) can still be valuable sources of information. They had to solve many of the same problems as ourselves and some of their solutions may be, if not outright superior, offer inspiration for improvement. The scientific method and our advanced technology are invaluable, including to reverse engineer our history such as above, but its base human ingenuity and perseverance that underlies it all.
 

Herdfan

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It’s a good reminder that our ancestors the world over (and no doubt current but pre-technological societies) can still be valuable sources of information. They had to solve many of the same problems as ourselves and some of their solutions may be, if not outright superior, offer inspiration for improvement.

We have 2 major road construction projects going on here, both involve adding a 3rd lane to the interstate. In both cases, there are long span bridges and they are going from fairly flat truss bridges to more of old school arch bridges.
 

rdrr

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People have been studying Roman concrete and why it was so durable in order to improve modern “Portland” cement. One of the end goals is to make less of it since the process of concrete making contributes to global warming (estimated at 8% of greenhouse gas).

Whereas Portland concrete is designed to be as chemically inert as possible to stave off cracks and bubbles that would harm the integrity, Roman concrete is chemically active but in such a way that heals cracks and improves durability. Further Roman concrete seems to have had multiple mechanisms to achieve this from the kind of limestone used to use of volcanic rocks and ash.



Each of these news articles contain links to published papers.

It’s a good reminder that our ancestors the world over (and no doubt current but pre-technological societies) can still be valuable sources of information. They had to solve many of the same problems as ourselves and some of their solutions may be, if not outright superior, offer inspiration for improvement. The scientific method and our advanced technology are invaluable, including to reverse engineer our history such as above, but its base human ingenuity and perseverance that underlies it all.
Seeing these monuments up close and hearing about how the cement was was made Rome one of the greatest empires of ancient history, just amazed me. Glad these articles were more in depth than the guides were. One other item that peaked my curiosity, was when I toured Pompeii, they mentioned that the cement used there had a lot of the volcanic ash as an ingredient, because of its abundance in the area. It made me wonder if someone spoke up and asked why there was so much volcanic ash available.
 

Herdfan

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Watched a show, either on Discovery or Science (could be wrong) called If We Built it Today and the episode I saw was about the Roman aqueducts. Very interesting on how they did the engineering and how they built things to last.
 
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